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The information technology (IT) sector has gained prominence since 1990. However, studies on the human resource management (HRM) policies and practices of multinational corporations (MNCs) have been few and far between. In this paper we study the Indian IT sector using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. For the quantitative research design, we used structured measurement tools developed by the Global HRM Project. Data were collected from 36 IT MNCs of Indian and foreign origin (U.S. and European) located in Bangalore and Hyderabad in India. We tested four hypotheses that were verified using the Mann–Whitney test of mean rank. We assessed the flow of HRM practices and the differences in HR practices between Indian and foreign MNCs. For the qualitative design we used an unstructured approach to gather secondary data sources and used anecdotal data gathered over a decade through our interactions with the Indian IT industry. We used the narrative style to show past and current Indian business culture, level of technology, and implications for foreign direct investment in the Indian IT sector. We state two qualitative hypotheses for this part of the research study. We find the current business culture and level of technology of Indian IT MNCs moderately similar to those of foreign MNCs, and more so U.S. MNCs. We find no differences between Indian and foreign MNCs in HRM practices. We assume that the unexpected similarity in international human resource management (IHRM) practices is probably due to: (1) the nature of information technology, (2) closing levels of R&D between Indian and foreign MNCs, and (3) similar business cultures of Indian and foreign MNCs. IT-intensive global organizations are likely get a step closer to global IHRM standardization.

After deciding to become agile, many information technology (IT) units struggle; they underestimate the needed managerial expertise to alter their current culture toward an agile one, particularly when cross-cultural (f)actors are involved. Given that work values are the key to an organizational culture, the study derived a set of agile work values of culturally diverse IT professionals together with a set of well-known generic work values. Consequently, the authors illustrate that managers in charge of the transition to an effective agile culture must pay serious attention to the specific value constellations of its often highly diverse workforce.

A literature review resulted in an initial list of agile work values. Then, mainly through a Delphi round, 12 agile-specific work values were established. These were survey rated, along with the validated set of 18 generic work values, by 102 British and Indian IT professionals in a digital service and consulting firm that was requested by its client to become agile. The observations made in 14 feedback group-interview-type dialogs enriched the surveyed data further.

In the current exploratory study, four generic value dimensions were complemented by two agile-specific ones: team communication and shared responsibility. Among the British and Indian (on-site and offshore) workers, only 2 of the 30 current work values were shared while 7 significant value differences were found, explaining the noted employee bitterness, productivity losses and client disengagement. This situation was reflected in the many discrepancies between the professionals' ideal agile way of working and how their unit was currently functioning.

The multi-method study shows an over-optimistic approach to becoming agile in a common cross-cultural context; insights are gained on how to optimize agile ways of organizing IT work when British IT workers collaborate with Indian IT workers. It may benefit many agile practitioners and managers working with(in) cross-culturally mixed and partly remote teams.

There is a lacuna in research work in terms of understanding how Indian IT organizations can become global brands. Benchmarking has not received much attention in marketing literature due to lack of benchmarking framework, and IT organizations are yet to make progress in benchmarking. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of brand strength on global branding by developing a conceptual benchmarking framework for Indian IT organizations.

Semi-structured in-depth interviews are conducted with thirty middle-level managers from two Indian IT organizations, two US-based global IT organizations and one UK-based leading bank, which is a customer of these IT organizations.

Results show a positive relationship between brand strength and global branding, between customer loyalty and global branding, between brand loyalty and competitive advantage and between global branding and competitive advantage. Indian IT organizations can benchmark global IT organizations to improve delivering brand promise, positioning, awareness building and authenticity toward making Indian IT organizations future ready to address the entire breadth of opportunities in the evolving world of cloud and digital.

This research helps managers with a brand strength-based benchmarking framework toward global branding of Indian IT organizations.

IT is instrumental for rapid growth of Indian’s economy. India should optimally utilize its greatest wealth, its human potential, with the latent global demand in IT through building global IT brands.

The originality of the study lies in conducting a qualitative study on global branding of Indian IT organizations and also proposing a conceptual benchmarking framework. The study further validates the model using qualitative analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the control mechanisms used by multinational corporations (MNCs) from emerging economies to manage their subsidiaries in developed countries and their implications for human resource management practices.

The paper draws on data collected through in-depth case studies and interviews with senior subsidiary managers of 12 major Indian information technology (IT) MNCs operating in Australia.

Indian IT MNCs rely heavily on the use of people-centric controls exerted through global staffing practices (via the transfer of parent-country nationals), which, in turn, influence their subsidiary’s discretion over their HR practices. The use of people-centric controls allows Indian IT multinationals to replicate parent-country HRM practices in their Australian subsidiaries in an ethnocentric manner and significantly leverage the people-based competitive advantages from India through short- and long-term expatriate assignments.

The study investigates control and HRM practices from a single country and a single industry perspective. It provides an insight into the normative means of control in foreign subsidiaries of MNCs and enhances our understanding by explaining the integrated relationship that control mechanisms (and their people-centric components) have with HRM practices including the global staffing approaches and expatriate management practices of emerging MNCs.

Indian MNCs are using their business model to leverage the Australian immigration and skilled visa programme to maintain cost advantages. However, the immigration legislation in developed countries needs to be capable of allowing emerging multinational corporations (EMNCs) to maintain such advantages as developed countries seek to attract foreign direct investment from emerging economies.

The results indicate that the control practices of EMNCs are similar to the controls exerted by MNCs from developed countries. They also show that EMNCs do not adopt a portfolio approach to global staffing, and that the people-centric components of their control have a clear impact on their subsidiaries’ HRM practices.

Is the rise of the Indian software industry simply another Asian state-dominated industrial growth story or is India distinctive, an economy where small technology entrepreneurs also find niches for development and can be drivers of innovation? Research has focused on the large integrated Indian and international service providers. This study examines the opportunity for growth among smaller innovative technology entrepreneurial firms. Two areas of inquiry are: What factors have been responsible for spurring growth in the Indian IT industry? What type of work is being carried out at Indian firms and is this profile changing? This paper aims to examine the emergence of technology entrepreneurs, particularly in terms of their links to multinational firms and their role and position in global value chains. The paper takes a multi-level approach to understanding development trajectories in the IT sector in India: a global value chain approach to the extent that company processes are seen in their larger networked context across organizations and an institutional approach in terms of state policies that influence the creation of infrastructure that, in turn, shapes organizational development trajectories. Additionally, it examines the role of the various actors within IT sector organizations – the workers, the managers and, in the case of the small companies in our sample, the owners – on the outcome of growth trajectories in the Indian IT sector. We find that the various levels of change and policy all contribute to the outcome in company trajectories: the dominance of multinational enterprises on the market, the entrepreneurial vision and survival strategies of returned technology expatriates, and the changing policies of the government in promoting indigenous business.

Qualitative research interviews; comparative case study; literature review; multi-tier analysis.

The technology entrepreneurial development in India appears to represent quite a distinctive path in terms of both firm development and broader economic development. It is focused on the IT sector, in which high skill “knowledge work” is carried out and which has been able to develop despite lack of basic infrastructure (roads and reliable electricity).

After the opening up of the business environment to large Western multinational enterprises (MNEs), it was difficult for indigenous Indian entrepreneurs to compete in innovative product development markets. Developing such companies depended on individual risk taking, as no specific infrastructure existed for niche production. However, the knowledge base and innovation clusters did offer opportunities for obtaining contracts. The Indian entrepreneurs did have to make a lot of compromises about defining their business and the tasks they could undertake. More research is needed on the paths and development opportunities for these smaller Indian-owned firms.

Unique opportunities are emergent and defy easy policy prescriptions, other than precluding change that does not foreclose emergent possibilities (e.g. such as strong state controlled business development).

Indian-owned innovative companies, although having difficulties competing with large Indian and Western MNEs, do put pressure on these MNEs to move work up the value chain, thereby providing more interesting and challenging opportunities for Indian knowledge workers.

This paper provides a unique company-level perspective about entrepreneurialism in the Indian software sector from the perspective of different actors in the process. It then links this company-level perspective to a larger context both in terms of trajectories of development at the macro level, as well as the role that the company’s place in multinational value chains has in its development perspectives. It gives a special insight into the motivations and obstacles facing entrepreneurs in India’s dynamic software sector.

The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of trends of Indian information technology and business processing management (IT-BPM) sector and to analyse the determinants of IT-BPM sector during the period 1991-2014.

The study is based on annual data collected from National Association of Software and Service Companies and Department of Electronic and Information Technology for the period 1991 to 2014. The methodology adopted for studying the objectives are simple averages, percentages, ratios, growth rates, graphs prepared on the basis of data from the IT-BPM sector and regression analysis. Trends and patterns in key variables, such as total revenue, domestic revenue, export revenue, employment and exports of the IT-BPM sector have been examined. Factors influencing IT-BPM export growth have been analysed using ordinary least square multiple regression model, with growth rates of gross domestic product (GDP), labour productivity, exchange rate and previous year’s export, as the explanatory variables.

The export revenue from IT-BPM sector increased continuously over the years, at an average growth rate of 36.60 per cent during the period 1991 to 2014. Similarly, domestic revenue of IT-BPM sector also increased, but at a lower growth rate. This is because domestic market in India is captured by multinational giants against Indian firms, which do not possess full comparative advantage in the case of IT-BPM sector. Indian firms are producing low skill activities required for production, mainly concentrated only in the export sector. Direct employment, excluding hardware from IT-BPM sector, has grown at an average rate of 18.08 per cent over the study period. The determinants of IT-BPM exports indicated previous year’s export demand to be significantly contributing the highest to export growth rate. This was followed by GDP growth rate, implying that overall growth of the economy leads to significant increase in export growth. Increased labour productivity followed next in significantly encouraging export growth.

Generalization of the results may not be possible, as Indian conditions and policies vary.

The paper has implications for the expansion of domestic market, diversification of trade and products, innovations for increasing competitiveness and sustainability in the global market in the wake of stiff competitions from new competitors.

This paper focuses on originality in analysis of determinants of export growth.

Caste is the basic structural feature of Hindu society; all social scientists are agreed on this. Since Hinduism is generally recognised to be as much a social system as a religion, its social framework embodying caste rituals has governed the lives of the majority of Indians for hundreds of years. Having deep roots in tradition and enjoying sanction in all religious literature belonging to the pre‐British era, caste has been the dominant principle of social organisation since ancient times. In fact, barring the recent past, Hinduism has always been identified in the minds of most Indians with caste observances. Writes R.C. Zaehner: “…until a century or so ago the acceptance of the caste system was considered by the orthodox to be the sole effective criterion of whether one was or was not a Hindu. In matters of belief it mattered not at all whether one believed in one god or many, or not at all, nor did it much matter on how one interpreted ‘liberation’ or whether one rejected it outright so long as one fulfilled the duties prescribed for one's caste.”

Using a semi-autoethnographic layered account format, we present the voices of 16 Native American adults as they talk about their lives and Native American Caricature Iconography (NACI). First, we explore their impressions and lived experiences with “racial formation projects” such as tribal identification cards, blood quantum calculations, genocide, child removal, boarding schools, and reservations, to contextualize why some Native Americans interpret NACI as much more than “an honor,” “tradition,” or “just good fun.” Next, we explore the Native Americans' perceptions of sports mascots, cartoons, and sculpture, after exposing them to a series of eight images of NACI. We conclude that NACIs are racial formation projects as well. By unmindfully producing and consuming NACI, we fail to interrupt and reform the racial formation projects that continue to define us all.

The main purpose of paper is to analyse the political, military and strategic significance of China’s rising power and its influence on Sino-Indian relations, while addressing the question as to why India has not been able to develop a long-term, stable and friendly relationship with China.

The paper is structured as follows: historical overview of India-China relations; various tools of China’s policy in Indian sub-continent; and India’s response. The paper employs a qualitative analysis of secondary literature, with media reports, official documents and public statements providing important sources for understanding the dynamics underlying bilateral relationship.

India needs to be prepared to face challenges as China’s charm offensive in India’s neighbourhood is primarily aimed at establishing a new Asian order in which Beijing would play the leading role. As China institutionalizes its military presence in South Asia and the Indian Ocean, India should adopt an innovative response mechanism, also involving counter-presence in areas considered China’s traditional sphere of influence.

The primary value of the paper lies in the fact that it covers most of the key dimensions of bilateral ties that impair a stable relationship between India and China. A proper understanding of the dynamics underlying bilateral ties may help the policymakers, scholars and academics to suggest ways to reduce sources of tensions, while also helping the Indian Government to prepare effective countermeasures.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent and quality of voluntary intellectual disclosures by information technology (IT) companies of China and India.

The research method adopted for this study is content analysis. The research is limited to the intellectual capital information disclosed in companies’ annual report. The sample for this research is based on 20 IT companies listed by market capitalization listed on Shenzhen or Shanghai stock exchange market, and the largest 20 companies listed on Indian stock market.

Indian IT companies tends to perform better than Chinese IT companies in extent and quality of disclosures. The extent of disclosure of both countries is at a relatively high level. The most frequently reported disclosure category in India is external capital, while the least one is human capital. In China, external capital is the most frequently disclosed category, while the internal capital is the least one.

The sample size of the study is relatively small. Future research can expand on the sample size to get an overview of the intellectual capital disclosure, and conduct a longitudinal study to capture the trend of reporting practices.

The findings of this study have implications for policy makers and standard setters for rethinking of inclusion of intellectual capital disclosure in annual reports as compulsory items. This will not only add tot he quality of information but various stakeholders will be able to make an assessment of the values of a firm.

Previous studies of intellectual capital (IC) disclosure have covered little on the relationship between market capitalization and quality of disclosure and cross-country disclosure on IC. This research tends to extend the literature on IC disclosure.